1. Technical Field
The invention relates to insertion of content into multimedia streams. More specifically, the invention relates to the rendering of focused advertisements and alternate content for viewing by a target audience on a mobile handheld display device; and, more particularly, to the insertion of alternate content during a startup delay associated with application download and buffering, prior to program start, via wireless connection.
2. Description of the Background Art
The availability and growth of usage of handheld mobile display devices (MHDD), such as the personal digital assistant (PDA) and the cell phone, is revolutionizing digital multimedia content viewing ability and user experience. Alternate content, including advertisements to be viewed with any active content, is typically downloaded and stored in the MHDD for insertion into predefined advertisement spots (ad spots) during actual user viewing of content. The insertion of alternate content into an active content stream at a specified ad spot is effected by a micro-splicer instantiated on the MHDD. The content to be viewed is thus buffered on the MHDD before the user begins actual content viewing.
The MHDD is becoming a major contender for running normal application programs. Due to the lack of storage capability on the MHDD, typical application programs are downloaded onto the MHDD via a wireless connection at the time of use. The variable nature of the available bandwidth that connects the MHDD to the source or transmitter of the content/application necessitates the downloading and storing of programs in the local memory of the MHDD, and then running the content/application from the MHDD's local memory.
There is also a time delay associated with any application download. As noted above, the time it takes to download any program or content depends on the available bandwidth. This time is currently wasted time for the user, who has to wait idly for completion of program or content downloading.
It would be advantageous to provide a way for effectively using this wait time by providing content and/or alternate content from a targeted advertisement gateway to a user, where such content and/or alternate content is based on an advertising program, and on the characteristics of the user or a specific group of individuals.
It would be further advantageous if such a solution would allow for intelligent use of the available bandwidth of a multicast wireless broadcasting system to provide improved advertising campaign efficiency.